For a moment he lay on his back, stunned. When he opened his eyes he saw the mountainous naked figure of Marshal Volsk looming over him. Volsk was sitting on the camp bed stamping his feet on the floor; alternately sucking his finger, shaking his hand and clutching it to his belly. “Isus si Maria! Isus si Maria! Isus si Maria!” Dilke crawled down the long slit trench towards the wall. Volsk rocked backwards and forwards on the bed, suddenly he jumped to his feet and stamped out of the room. By the time Dilke reached the wall a rectangle of pink light from the rising sun had moved halfway down its whitewashed surface.
Dilke’s head hurt, his trousers were torn, his knees were skinned and there was a sharp, tearing pain in the fibres of his left shoulder muscle.
4
Dilke sat at the end of the trench with his back against the wall, nursing his shoulder, his eyes shut, his head resting against the side of the trench. His mind remorselessly ran visions of the night’s events through the film gate of his memory. Over and over again, as if on a loop of film, he saw the lice; he saw Henry Scott-Miline’s death like an old silent movie; he saw Olsen turning a slow-motion somersault, and he experienced again his kaleidoscopic fall down the blanket. His head spun at the memory of it, but worst of all was the flat sense of failure, the bitterness was like bile in his throat. During the early morning Marshal Volsk returned to the bedroom with his hand in a white slab of bandages, carrying with him a smell of antiseptics; he dressed one handed and left.
During that day and the following night Dilke lay up recovering from his fall. The orderly removed the bed and Volsk did not return.
At the dawn of the second day Dilke ate chocolate from his ration pack and started his journey out of the room. He travelled along the edge of the room, into the shadow of the wardrobe, leaping across each trench between the planks as he came to them. He reached the doorway and walked towards the big office.
Then he heard a sound which made his scalp crawl; a deep, chakkering, snarling sound; not an insect sound:— a dog sound. He turned his head and looked back into the shadow of the doorway. From it emerged a huge, black wolf-like creature which reached as high as Dilke’s waist. It moved towards him at a half-crouch, advancing each paw slowly.
Dilke’s thoughts were completely disorganized, he could not place this insect-sized dog in the scheme of things. For a moment his eyes were fixed on the creature’s yellow canines and then he saw around its neck a heavy collar, the chain from it looped and twisted up to stop it trailing on the ground. There was a movement in the shadows and a micro-man stepped out and stood beside the dog. He was a very big man, a head taller than Dilke himself. Dilke’s first impression was of the man’s physical power and of his handsome smiling face.
He had the physique of a gymnast, with thick slabs of muscle across his chest, round his shoulders and along his arms. He held an olive-green crossbow across his right forearm like a gamekeeper doing his rounds. He had larger-than-life good looks with a wide mouth, straight nose, high Slav cheekbones and blue-green eyes. His naked body was tanned brown from the arched insteps of his feet to the top of his smooth head—and the whole of his face and body was completely hairless.
“Spune-mi, ce faci aici?” he smiled.
“Intelegi Româneste?” he smiled again.
Dilke was silent.
The black dog continued its low chakkering snarl. Muscleman slapped it casually across the muzzle with his left hand and it yelped and sat down two paces behind him.
“Do you speak English?” he smiled.
Dilke answered, “Yes.”
“Ahh!” The hairless skin rose high over the ridge of his brows in a pantomime of friendliness.
“And what are you doing here?”
Dilke could think of no answer.
Man and dog moved near to him. The dog started a low, querulous growl again and the man jerked his head and glared at it.
“Taci!” he spat.
The dog was silent, its ears flattened, its head averted. In the flash of time when he silenced the dog Dilke saw gaps in the man’s teeth at the side of his mouth, they gave him an oddly vulpine appearance.
His lips smiled again.
“Turn round, my friend,” he said.
His left hand ran swiftly over Dilke’s body; over the jacket pockets, under his arms and between his legs. He patted Dilke lightly on the shoulder, “I want you to come with me, my friend; I have something which you might like to see.”
He made a gesture which signalled “Go that way” and a bow from the hips which said “After you…” and they walked into the office and moved along the alleyway between metal filing cabinets and the office wall. For fifteen minutes they walked; Dilke, the man, and the dog.
“What is your name?” the man asked.
“Dilke,” Dilke replied.
“That is a strange name for an Englishman? My name is Novi Batzar.”
Dilke turned his head; the man Batzar walked behind and a little to one side, the crossbow still held loosely in the curve of his arm, aimed roughly in the direction of Dilke’s right kidney.
“And this is Fulg de Zapada…” he inclined his chin (to the beast at his side and chuckled deeply, “it means “Snowflake.”
“You English keep your hair well.”
Surprised at the irrelevance of the words Dilke glanced quickly at Batzar. “Zapada; he also has kept his hair well—haven’t you Zapada?” The dog looked up and gave its tail a flourish. Dilke turned his eyes forward and continued walking, uneasy at the inconsequence of the man’s remarks.
They came out of the alley and walked beneath the seat of a chair till they came to a shining metal platform shaped like a scoop. It was thirty millimetres wide, enclosed at the back and sides, and with a waist-high rail across its open front. There were stains of rust in the corners and a big black circle had been painted in the middle of the shining platform. The paint had spread like tarmac and dried with a smooth sheen.
“Please walk on, my friend.”
Dilke ducked under the bar and Batzar did a slow, gymnast’s vault over it. Then he did a strange thing: he looked up and walked backwards till he stood in the centre of the circle; he placed his left thumb and forefinger together and put them between his lips; he blew a long, lazy whistle, the tail of the sound rising sharply at the end.
From the chair above came: the sound of creaking leather and squealing metal and a shadow fell across them. The huge hand which cast the shadow came down like a falling block of flats and Dilke went into a reflex crouch on one knee, his hands clutching the rail. The giant stubby fingers raised the platform from the floor and the dog which had remained behind started to leap and bark. The platform remained rocking gently a few millimetres from the ground till two sharp whistles signalled it to rise. The dog’s barking touched a peak of hysteria, fading as they left it behind. They soared over the edge of the trestle-table, passing over items of office equipment as big as buildings, a telephone, a skyscraper stack of trays, a typewriter with a sheet of paper rising from its carrier.
On the wide plain below, disposed like huts around a barracks square, were more bits of secretarial gear. A box file, a day calendar in a wooden mount, a carton of spilled paperclips, a typewriter-ribbon tin filled with the crushed fag-ends of Balkan cigarettes.
A ragged blotter, its surface stained with ink blots and the broken flourishes of reversed signatures, was surrounded by this clutter and in the middle of the blotter stood a pack of Rumanian cigarettes.
The pack was made of cheap yellow strawboard. A picture was crudely printed in black on its upper surface. It showed a horseman on a galloping horse. The rider sat stiffly erect in the high saddle, fur capped, aggressively moustached, a bandolier across his chest, arms flung out in an expansive gesture.
The horse was frozen in an attitude of mad abandon, galloping with legs at full stretch, its belly almost touching the ground.
The drawing had a rough and primitive vitality, PARTIZANUL was printed in sepia in a half circl
e round the rider’s head and shoulders. The words TIGARI DE PRIMA CALITATE appeared beneath the horse’s belly.
Dilke looked down on the pack. A knot of apprehension formed in his gut; he flashed a glance at the man beside him. Batzar regarded him through lazy eyes, his smile was sardonic; he said nothing.
They made a helicopter landing, the hand depositing them on the blotter a few paces from the pack; in its side was an open door.
Batzar’s smile had stretched to a grin.
“I congratulate you on your ingenious box of tricks. You are surprised to see it here? But we have sharp eyes in Rumania!”
He waved a hand at the now-seated guard who was lighting a stub of cigarette which he had retrieved from behind an ear as big as a bowling green. “Our friend here found your box of tricks and brought it to us.”
Dilke thought that this gave more credit to the guard’s powers of observation and intelligence than he deserved: he had probably spotted it while guarding the gate— trivial things would catch the eye of a bored man—had picked it up hoping that it contained cigarettes and showed it round the guardroom as a curiosity before it was seen by Batzar.
When they entered the container, Dilke found that a section of the bulkhead had been tom down, revealing an Ever Ready battery. The inspection panels on the big radio receiver/transmitter had been removed and its parts had been dismantled and laid out on the edge of the platform. The contents of the wall cupboards were also laid out and Dilke added his camera and maps to the display of wireless parts, binoculars, compasses… it looked like an army surplus store.
Novi Batzar took from the refrigerator two bottles of beer. Holding them side by side in a big hand he rested the crown caps on the edge of the ice-box door and dexterously knocked them off with the flat of his other hand. He made a long arm and offered a foaming bottle to Dilke. He up-ended the other down his gullet, watching Dilke round the side of the bottle; he dropped the bottle to the floor, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and belched.
“I like your English beer,” he said, “but it has many bubbles!”
Dilke stood watchfully, the bottle held before him, cold between his hands. Batzar did a little jump and perched sideways on the platform. He placed the crossbow within reach, picked up the camera and swung open its hinged back. His right thumb cocked the shutter mechanism and his right forefinger triggered it… cocked it… triggered it… cocked it… triggered it…
He looked at Dilke through the open back of the camera. Dilke saw the staring eye—magnified by the lens —fixed on him in a series of flashes.
“You make a good camera. Do you prefer a diaphragm shutter? We prefer a focal plane shutter… it has some advantages in manufacture. Every camera should have a built-in meter; do you not agree? The day of the separate light meter is dead.”
Dilke was noncommittal.
“Is the camera Japanese?”
Dilke said, “I don’t know.”
The brown hands snapped the camera shut and turned it over. “I can see no serial number, has it got a serial number?”
Dilke shrugged.
The hands gently replaced the camera amongst the bargain price equipment.
“We’ve had trouble with toothache,” Batzar grinned.
Dilke decided to take part in the conversation, even though it had once more taken a surrealist turn, “I’m sorry to hear it. It’s a nasty thing toothache—can be very painful,”
Batzar laughed, “Yes, our first man was killed by his false teeth, his rate of reduction was too fast—he got size ten teeth in a size-nothing face!” For the first time, Dilke smiled; the idea, though macabre, was funny.
Batzar was encouraged to continue.
“Yes, he was allergic to false teeth… and I lost some hair.” He passed a palm over his smooth brown head. “Have you had any allergy effects?”
Dilke was silent again.
“False teeth? No hair? Sickness? Deafness? Melancholia? Insanity? Death?” They sounded like words from a patent medicine advertisement.
His interrogator was giving more information than he was receiving but Dilke was tired of the ponderous attempt to trick him into giving information.
“Mr. Batzar, you know who I am and what I am. This game which you are playing will give no results. We are professional agents and you must know that I can not answer your questions.”
Dilke turned and placed the bottle of beer, now warmed by his hands, on the platform. He then faced Batzar.
Batzar still sat easily on the platform, the smile on his face; but it was the sort of smile that has been smiled too long.
He eased himself off the platform edge.
“Very well, Mr. Dilke.” He spoke in a quieter, slower voice with the tiniest emphasis on the ‘Mr’. “We will play another kind of game. You may find it a more entertaining one; at least I think I will find it so. Step outside on to the carrier.”
This time the whistled signal was complex, and the guard picked up both the platform and the cigarette box and carried them down the long room, rapidly passing a dozen rough office tables. The end of the room was partitioned off with fluted glass, and behind the partition was another trestle-table; this one was covered with white paper, and on the paper, in front of a rack of test-tubes and some flasks and boxes, stood a microscope.
It was a beautiful but rather antique instrument—big, with a gleaming, lightly oiled brass tube surmounting a turntable which accommodated three alternative lenses. As the transporter approached the top of the tube, Dilke saw a glimpse of a complex arrangement of wheels and levers below him. Then the guard slowly lowered the transporter on to the top of the microscope tower.
They stepped off on to the circular eyepiece.
Dilke walked before Novi Batzar to the centre of the glass floor.
“I have something to show you, my friend.” ‘My friend’ in Batzar’s mouth now had a light, ironic stress which was rather chilling.
He whistled and the hand of the guard moved down below the level of the eyepiece, the tendons in the massive wrist slid under the blue-veined skin as the hidden fingers worked the instrument’s mechanism. The glass on which Dilke stood became luminous and he looked down. He was suspended over what appeared to be a huge black-and-white photograph of a face.
It was Bill Olsen.
The head was turned, the face in profile, the brow set in a deep concentrated frown, the sightless eye open very wide. A dark, dried-up rivulet of blood had run out of the bleached hair, down over the temple, and had formed a flaking pool in the curl of the ear. The blood was rusty-red in colour. It was not a photograph at which Dilke stared: he saw a shade of blue in the lips; the tanned skin, now bloodless, had become grey.
Batzar signalled and the guard turned a knurled wheel at the side of the microscope—slowly the face below Dilke’s feet receded. Dilke felt a sensation of vertigo and then one of nausea as more and more of the naked body was revealed. The body was fearfully injured; the exposed ribs gleamed through the lacerated flesh and the right leg was stripped of skin and fractured into a grotesque shape. The wrists were bound together.
“Would you like to see how this was done?” asked Batzar.
Dilke’s eyes were locked on the body of his friend.
Batzar whistled; the body receded once more; lying beside the dead man was a centipede. It too was dead, curled in a huge S-band fifteen millimetres long; it was on its back revealing the gleaming yellow segments of its belly. On the head, beneath the cruel mandibles, there was a hole surrounded by a flush of green and there was another in the second segment—characteristic crossbow wounds. The corpses were crudely mounted between glass slides, a smear of blood from the man and globules of yellow matter from the centipede had been crushed on to the glass. The light beneath Dilke’s feet suddenly changed, the two bodies became black silhouettes; the rag-doll which had been Olsen and the serpentine shape of his killer lay frozen in an obscene dance of death.
“I have something else to show you.”
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Batzar had seated himself on the ebony rim of the eyepiece with the crossbow resting across his thighs.
Dilke’s breath came in long, dry heaves with an audible gasp at the end of each inhalation; his body shook with the stress of emotion; nausea, grief and rage struggled for dominance.
“I have something else to show you.” The voice was malevolent.
The rigid muscles of Dilke’s neck slowly turned his head till his eyes looked into those of his captor; the intensity of his hatred glittered through the slits of his eyelids. Batzar brought up the crossbow rather quickly to cover his captive, then he stood up and gave his whistled signal; from the table the guard raised a wooden crate till it was level with the top of the microscope, then he rested it with a thud on the eyepiece rim, holding it there between thumb and forefinger.
The crate was huge—about forty millimetres wide— crudely made, the front covered with a sheet of perforated zinc. A smell came from the box which reminded Dilke of a ferret’s cage, but the stink of insect excrement was more pungent and sickening, and he breathed through his mouth to avoid retching.
The box interior seen through the circular holes was dark; Dilke sensed that something within was watching and listening. Batzar struck the front of the cage with the butt of the crossbow and abruptly a hollow, pulsing roar started inside.
Through the holes in the zinc he could see the shining golden bellies of the centipedes. He could not see how many there were because they raced in a pattern of curves and circles over the inside of the cage front, their tracks meeting, diverging and sometimes crossing; their hundreds of legs twinkling and flashing through the perforations. One of them stopped and fixed its multi-lensed eyes on Dilke, it strained to force its head through the hole, biting at the metal and scrabbling with its claws, shaking the whole cage front with its ferocity.
Cold War in a Country Garden Page 12
